


The Lie Direct

by izzybeth



Category: As You Like It - Shakespeare
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-21
Updated: 2008-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:39:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1624700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izzybeth/pseuds/izzybeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Your If is your only peacemaker; much virtue in If." (5.iv)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lie Direct

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to my roommates for cheerleading and kicks in the ass, and thanks to lovelokest for the eleventh hour beta. <3
> 
> Written for Fox

 

 

ACT IV.4  
ENTER JAQUES DE BOYS

JAQUES DE BOYS  
Let me have audience for a word or two.

TOUCHSTONE  
Unsquint thine eyes, Audrey. Gape not with wide mouth and  
hands on hips at the newcomer— Ah, here comes the Duke's  
own raincloud, frowning at sunshine and glad news alike.

JAQUES  
Good friend, good wit, a word in your ear. Draw aside, I must  
ask a thing of you. How best to become a fool? A fool's fool,  
a brave fool, a worthy clown? Motley's the only color.

TOUCHSTONE  
You would learn the art of the fool and serve your lord thusly?

JAQUES  
Were I a fool, I would have license to speak as I please and  
serve out the wisdom of my craft to the Duke and his courtiers.

TOUCHSTONE  
Appear you seriously. I shall impart some of my craft's wisdom,  
as you say. You must dedicate your entire self to the art. 'Tis a  
journey that consumes the best part of a man's life, exhausts  
his brain to the breaking point, demands the full quantity of his  
soul, so rocky and be-obstacled is the path. Become yourself  
apprenticed to a fool, absorb of his colorful experience all that  
you can and more, follow him through city and hinterland,  
sequester yourself upon the mountain, surround yourself at the  
finest courts, befriend the men, woo the women, laugh, weep,  
dance, rage--

JAQUES  
You're having me on.

TOUCHSTONE  
You, a fool? The gods themselves do shake the heavens with  
laughter at your foolishness.

JAQUES  
A man in his life plays many parts, wears many hats, though  
some may flatter him not. In truth, friend, I would wear the  
jester's bells.

TOUCHSTONE  
Such a cap rests skewed upon your head, and makes a  
bird's nest of your hair.

JAQUES  
I thought it a rakish angle.

TOUCHSTONE  
Fools must speak as they think, think as they see, and see  
as they will, and so must I, as the motley coat is my habit:  
a worse man to play the fool did I never see in all my days  
on the green earth. Thou art a melancholy: such a fool is  
more inclined to make his lord weep in truth than weep in  
laughing.

JAQUES  
Peace, I believe you not. People do laugh at another's  
misery, cruel though that may be.

TOUCHSTONE  
This is true, yet the fiddler must have more than a single  
tune in his repertoire, lest his audience grow weary and  
demand their coin again.

JAQUES  
You answer swiftly and knowledgeably. Speakst thou  
from painful experience?

TOUCHSTONE  
From a general education one acquires through observation  
of humanity. It may even come to you in time.

JAQUES  
I should only expect mockery from a fool. Your judgment is  
faulty; you cannot know how the vocation would suit until  
I had tried it on.

TOUCHSTONE  
'Twould befit you like as the jester's cap: the coat that becomes  
me well is too snug on your shoulders, and forever dragging in  
the mud and twisting 'round your heels. The heavy cloak of the  
melancholy is just your fashion.

JAQUES  
Swirls dramatically in the autumn wind, does it?

TOUCHSTONE  
Just so.

JAQUES  
Still, I say you speak untrue. These senseless words are  
more for entertainment than enlightenment.

TOUCHSTONE  
That is partly the nature of the fool, sir. He speaks true, yet  
poses his words in such a way as to amuse; and thus he  
avoids a beating, which would be inevitable were he to speak  
straight. Your own unbruised appearance quite amazes me.

JAQUES  
How so?

TOUCHSTONE  
Here in the wood you live amongst more civil men than yourself  
and speak as you do, plainly and graceless, stomping upon men  
for sins that you yourself have committed. If you were a fool,  
the noble Duke would have cracked your skull long ago.

JAQUES  
More civil men, indeed. Courtly manners are not unknown to  
me, fellow.

TOUCHSTONE  
No, indeed, they are familiar to you, sir, but not friends. Any fool  
worth his sauce knows how to transform the truth into a palatable  
meal, and has the wit to serve a different meat if the first was not  
so well received. I take it your dinners are most often sent back  
to the kitchen?

JAQUES  
Go to, Monsieur Clown, take your lies elsewhere. I'll have no  
more of you.

TOUCHSTONE  
Then who would you learn the fool's trade from, if not myself?  
The trees? The stream? The stones? Stones are the least  
amusing of God's creations. Not a man in the world laughs  
at a stone.

JAQUES  
Why plague you me with your presence still? God's teeth, your  
drivel grates upon my ears. Be off, join the revelers, dance with  
your sun-tinted shepherdess, leave me in peace.

TOUCHSTONE  
To moan and carp upon the weather— "'Tis a pity the day is fine;  
the flowers do droop for lack of water," quoth Signior Gloom— and  
to sit alone in a cave whilst we carouse? If that is your wish, sir,  
then let me grant it.

JAQUES  
Stay, good fool, stay. I spoke out of turn, and ask that you  
pardon me. Your meaning is well taken. The fool's life is not  
for me. If you are so confident in your opinion, then I have  
no reason to doubt you.

TOUCHSTONE  
Why stay you in Arden with the merry Duke? Thou'rt more  
miserable than a wet winter, and twice as chilly.

JAQUES  
I find the fields and forest, created from the ether and God's  
own mind, more fitting to my nature than any venerated structure  
formed in stone by human hands. And truly, my lord Duke is a  
generous and kindly man. Why stay you with the rustic youth and  
his sister? A man such as yourself could do excellent well at court.

TOUCHSTONE  
Ah, my friend, as you may observe, the rustic youth is no longer.  
He is replaced by the Duke's gracious daughter, the common  
sister now the precious cousin, and am I off to the court once more  
with my Audrey. Take my advice, freely given and well intended:  
find another hat to wear. I wish you well.

JAQUES  
Sir, by your patience. If I heard you rightly,  
The duke hath put on a religious life  
And thrown into neglect the pompous court.

JAQUES DE BOYS  
He hath.

JAQUES  
To him will I. Out of these convertites  
There is much matter to be heard and learned.  
[TO DUKE SENIOR]  
You to your former honor I bequeath;  
Your patience and your virtue well deserves it.  
[TO ORLANDO]  
You to a love that your true faith doth merit;  
[TO OLIVER]  
You to your land and love and great allies;  
[TO SILVIUS]  
You to a long and well-deserved bed;  
[TO TOUCHSTONE]  
And you to wrangling, for thy loving voyage  
Is but for two months victualled. So, to your pleasures:  
I am for other than for dancing measures.

DUKE SENIOR  
Stay, Jaques, stay.

JAQUES  
To see no pastime I. What you would have  
I'll stay to know at your abandoned cave.

EXIT.

 


End file.
